living in Armenia with his wife Yeva. Nigel parlayed a two-month volunteer stint into long-term employment, and recently founded his own start-up technology company called Lionsharp Solutions. The company is currently seeking investment to create the world's first Voiceboard.

The Lionsharp Solutions team (Nigel is 2nd from right)

Deciding what to do in life sometimes takes the right set of circumstances and opportunities to seize, and of course, timing is everything. It all seemed to come together for 25-year-old Nigel Sharp, when he left his London life behind him in the spring of 2010, and headed to Armenia to volunteer.

"It all somehow feels right, having come here as an Armenian Volunteer Corps (AVC) volunteer and Birthright Armenia participant, then remaining in Armenia to build a three-year skill set as an IT Project Manager at TUMO, that the next logical step is building my own business with local talent," Nigel admits. "I don't want to lie, it is high risk financially, and emotionally draining at times, but with the right support and the inner strength of our team, I believe success is ahead..."

"Having successfully implemented and installed the technology at TUMO Center for Creative Technologies, I decided it's now the right moment to build a new technology team in Yerevan named Lionsharp Solutions. This is probably the first team to move on from TUMO and to use their skills and confidence gained there to join Yerevan's latest generation of entrepreneurs. In many respects we encompass the TUMO long-term mission, and this step has been a validation of what we have learned from that project. The future success of Armenia and it's people will only come from innovation and utilizing our intellectual capital," adds Nigel.

Nigel with his Lionsharp Solutions team members are currently in Sofia, Bulgaria, where they traveled to participate in the Eleven StartUp Accelerator competition in the hopes of attracting some funders to help back this growing start-up venture. Their hard work paid off. They scored their first huge success by placing first against almost 300 other teams from around the world and successfully winning their first round of acceleration investment! They will be given seed money of 25-50K EUR to continue developing their product and get mentorship from other professionals.

"We have the belief and desire to build a company which allows us to create new technology and products - the first of which will be the Voiceboard - a new way to digitize ideas with gesture and voice capture. Maybe our new company motto should be a take on a wise Italian proverb: "It is better to live one day as a Lion than a hundred years as a sheep."

Linda Yepoyan

Executive Director

Why Give to Birthright Armenia?

There are so many reasons to support Birthright Armenia's mission. To name a few we help today's young adults exercise their "birthright" to take part in building their ancestral Homeland and, in turn, strengthen their Armenian identity, give back to their local communities and make lifelong friends with like-minded young people from around the world.

You may visit the travelogues section to view firsthand what our volunteers are saying about their experience.